EU Expects Russia to Fulfill Conditions For Visa-Free Regime With Bloc

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The European Union hopes that Russia will continue working toward fulfilling the EU criteria for a visa-free regime with the bloc even while political dialogue between the sides is frozen, EU Ambassador to Russia Vygaudas Usackas said Thursday.

In 2010, Russia submitted a draft deal to the European Union on visa-free travel between Russia and Schengen zone countries.

“I hope that during the formal pause the relevant Russian authorities have not been wasting time and have continued to work on fulfilling the demands and recommendations.  They have to be fulfilled anyway, if we want in the future, after the normalization of our relations, to return to the issue of a visa-free regime,” Usackas said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

In October, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow had fulfilled all the necessary conditions to abolish visas with the European Union, but Brussels had assumed a negative stance on the issue long before the deterioration in Russia-EU relations amid the Ukrainian crisis.

Relations between Russia and the European Union have become strained after the bloc and its allies introduced several rounds of sanctions against Russia over its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.